Topic > Understanding Recovered Memories: A Neurological Approach...

Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century, the validity of recovered memories was the subject of heated debate by the psychoanalytic community. Recovered memories are forgotten memories of traumatic experiences that we recall later in life, often through psychoanalysis or psychotherapy which can lead to the possible creation of a pseudomemory. Freud believed that these recovered memories of possible sexual abuse were the solution to the problems relating to the origin of hysteria and obsessive neurosis (1), this is stated in the “Seduction Theory”, a hypothesis suggested by Freud himself. Seduction theory, a hypothesis suggested by Freud stated that "a repressed memory of an experience of sexual abuse or molestation in early childhood was the essential precondition for hysterical or obsessive symptoms with the addition of an active sexual experience until 'age of eight years' (1). This theory was abandoned after only a year of his proposal, as he came to terms with the fact that his patients' memories were predominantly false and could have been caused by the suggestive methods he used in their psychoanalytic therapy. Freud's first case in the study of recovered memories was that of Miss G. de B, who came to him at the suggestion of her cousin with stammering speech, and after psychoanalysis led Freud to declare that she had been sexually abused by of his father despite the fact that he had no recollection of such events having happened, at first he believed him with all his heart until